Old Hands

Old Hands
By BumbleBeeBoogie

When I was young, my fingers showed the blows from baseball and volleyball games; My blistered hands were always recovering from
swinging on playground rings and hanging from monkey bars.

As a young woman with beautiful hands and long, elegant nails kept shaped and polished; a wedding ring was the only adornment I wore. I had no yen for gold jewelry. My money went for mortgages, cars, food, clothing, and children's education.

Now my hands are old and wrinkled, knuckles swollen with arthritis. Blisters form on fingers at the slightest abuse. Fragile nails struggle against splitting and breaking. Now I can indulge in gold rings and gem stones. But somehow they've lost their glamour on fingers no longer slim and elegant.

I look down at a broken nail, a bandaged finger, a thumbnail black from being caught in a drawer.

How strange and vain we humans are.